Green Valley Part 23

"So I just took off my hat and put those four pig's feet on the stove to simmer, and I helped her to get the head cheese out of the way.

When there's two working and talking, why, the time goes and when we turned around there were those pig's feet as tender as could be, so when the children came in we sat down and had pig's feet with horse-radish. Grace wouldn't touch them; said she had enough pig in her system to last her ten years and she knew she'd break out in gumboils.

"I suppose you've heard how Malcolm Gross thought he'd lay in a nice supply of maple syrup for his buckwheat pancakes this winter, and how the children went to tasting and forgot to cork the big can, and the cat went climbing around for mice and bacon rind and knocked the thing down. Florence says there's maple syrup tracked all over the house and she says her rugs are ruined.

"It seems as if Grove Street was full of trouble, for while Grace was crying over her pig, Elsie Winters next door was crying over her blue henrietta dress that didn't dye right. Elsie swears it was old dye Martin sold her and wishes we'd have another drug store because a little compet.i.tion would do Martin good. And next door to Elsie, Pete Sweeney's tickled to death. He says it serves Elsie right, that Green Valley women've got a mania for dyeing things and trying to make 'em last forever; that he's had two bolts of just the kind of color Elsie was trying to get but that she wouldn't look at it.

"And Pete Sweeney's not the only one that's down on the women. Andy Smiley cleaned up so much money on those new bungalows that he went to the city and came home with twenty-five dollars' worth of ostrich plumes for Nettie. He said he was bound that Nettie'd have a real hat once in her life, that he's tired of watching her making her own hats, even piecing out the shapes with bits of cardboard and tr.i.m.m.i.n.g and retr.i.m.m.i.n.g. She got in the way of it the first ten years they were married, when Andy was having such poor luck and now, poor thing, I guess she can't get out of it, because the day after Andy brought the plumes Nettie went to the city and bought a thirty-nine-cent shape to put them on. And she's wearing it like that, looking worse than ever.

They say Andy's swearing awful and that Mary Langely almost cried when she saw those lovely plumes and begged Nettie to come in and let her fix up her hat proper and without charge. But Nettie just smiled that happy little smile of hers and shook her head.

"Andy Smiley ain't the only one that's doing well. Johnny Peters got a raise the other day and Claudie's treated herself to two dozen beautiful linen dish towels. She says she's used flour sacks to wipe dishes ever since she was six years old and she's always been hoping she'd be rich enough some day to have real linen dish towels. So she's got 'em. But they're so nice she hardly likes to use them, and the two weeks she was sick and had to have her washing done at the laundry she was mighty careful not to send them. She washed them herself right there beside her bed, and her sick with rheumatism. They say Doc Philipps used awful language, for he caught her right at it. But when she explained he just blew his nose and never said another word. But he talked to Johnny and Johnny went out and bought four dozen dish towels such as Green Valley has never seen. Why, Sadie Dundry says even the Ainslees haven't got dish towels like that. Doc says that if he can coax some man to get Dolly Beatty good woolen stockings and keep her from wearing those transparent things this winter he'll be almost happy; says if Dolly should marry that widower he'll talk to him.

"All Elm Street's laughing at Alexander Sabin and Carrie and their pump. That pump of theirs has been out of order all summer and Carrie's been sick from nothing else but getting mad every time she'd go out for a pail of water. Alexander promised to fix it but instead of that he's repaired everybody else's all up and down Elm Street and just can't seem to get started on his own. Carrie's going on a strike to-morrow, ain't going to cook a mouthful of victuals, she says, until that pump is fixed. The neighbors, much as they like Alexander, are all on her side and have promised not to invite him in, even for a drink of water from the pumps he's fixed. And his mother's away at Barton, nursing her sick sister, so it looks as if Alexander will be starved into fixing that pump of his.

"Debby Collins is going to give the minister one of her cats, the one that has to have a cold potato for its lunch every day. She says it's the most mannerly of all her cats and that she'd never think of giving it to any one but the minister and not even to him but that now that he's going to have a proper home and a housekeeper, why, it'll be safe.

"Everybody, of course, is crazy about the housewarming the minister is going to give next week. I guess everybody is going. It'll be a fine night for thieves, Bessie Williams says, with every soul gone. That girl's mind just naturally turns to evil. She knows there ain't ever been a thing stolen in this town, less it was a kiss or two. But Bessie's the only one, so far as I could hear, who was borrowing trouble. The rest of the town is dying to get into that house that's been closed so long. And everybody's curious to know just what Hen Tomlins's been doing to the furniture. You know when the minister found out what a fine wood-carver and cabinet-maker Hen was he had him go through the house. And they say that Bernard Rollins, the portraiture man, is mixed up in the housewarming too. But n.o.body can figure out how. And that ain't the worst. Uncle Tony says that he heard that the minister bought out the poolroom man, because some one saw the music box being hauled over to the minister's house. You know Jake and some others were planning to run that poolroom man out of town, even whispering about tar and feathers. But the minister asked them to let him manage and try to fix things up first. So they did and he's done it, because the poolroom's closed; the stuff went out yesterday and Effie Struby's brother Alf swears he saw that poolroom man fooling with the minister's automobile out in the barn. But you know how near-sighted Alf is and his word ain't credited much, and everybody's so busy getting ready for the party that they can't stop to investigate. And ain't it funny how none of us don't somehow ask the minister things, just wait until he tells us? And ain't he got a funny way of just talking about nothing special, only being pleasant, and then letting you find out weeks after that he did tell you something that you'd been needing to know? My! I bet that boy could give a child castor oil and make him honestly think it was candy. Why, they say that as far as anybody can find out, he's never give that poolroom man even one good talking to. Jake, who's been itching to lambaste the man, says 's-far's he can see, it was the poolroom man who did all the talking. And once Jake says he just dropped in himself, just to see what line of argument the minister was using, and he says that he'd be danged if the minister did a blessed thing but play 'Annie Laurie' and 'We'd Better Bide a Wee' over and over on that music box. Jake hasn't figured it out yet.

"Why, Grandma, there's some thinks maybe Cynthia's son has brought back some Indian magic. They say India's chuckful of it--but law--it'll take more than magic to save little Jim Tumley, for he's beginning again. While the minister kept close he was all right but the housewarming and that poolroom took up time, and then Jim's sister, Mrs. Hoskins, got sick and Jim goes there to play and sing to her, and you know what George Hoskins is. He must have his drink and offer visitors some--and poor Jim--just the smell of it knocks him out. The minister says Jim must be saved. But how's it to be done, tell me that? There ain't anything smart or knowing about me, but the minister'll never save Jim Tumley less'n he kills off a few of our comfortable, respectable drinkers and closes up the hotel. And I tell you, n.o.body but G.o.d Almighty could make this town dry."

"Well, f.a.n.n.y," smiled Grandma, "I've noticed that if there ever is a job that n.o.body but the Almighty can handle, He generally takes it in hand and settles it."

CHAPTER XVI

THE HOUSEWARMING

Jocelyn Brownlee was dressing for the minister's party. She was laying out the prettiest of her pretty things and sighing as she did it. For what two months before would have seemed a joyous occasion was now nothing but a painful, trying ordeal, an ordeal that must, however, be gallantly gone through with.

Ever since that afternoon when she had stood on the back porch waving joyfully to David and received no answer her world had lost its color.

All the rose and gold had faded and she stood lonely and lost and cold in a mist of mystery.

She had seen David since that day, had even spoken to him. But her words were few and full of a gracious courtesy that put a whole wide world between them.

"Are you going to the minister's housewarming, Jocelyn?" David had asked painfully. He had realized the raw cruelty of that afternoon and had come over to explain and make amends.

"Yes--I'm going, David. All the town will be there, won't it?" she had answered and asked gently.

"Shall I stop for you?" begged the big boy.

"Why, no, David--thank you. I shall not need an escort. It's such a little way and I'm used to Green Valley now." But David knew just how afraid this city mouse was of the country roads at night.

She was such a gracious little body as she stood there in her garden that David wondered how he had ever for a moment doubted her and what madness in his blood had made him yield to the cruelty that had shut her heart and door to him.

For closed they were and gone was the simple, confiding girl who had picnicked with him one May day. In her place was this quiet young woman who talked to him pleasantly but did not ask him in, and who scared him with her calm and sweetness and drove the stumbling explanation from his lips.

So Jocelyn was laying out her pretty things and sighing. As long as she was not going with David she decided to wear the smart slippers with the high heels and the pretty buckles. David did not approve of high heels.

She knew that a great many of the Green Valley women would wear dresses with collars to their chins. So she smiled just a bit wickedly as she glanced at the soft, misty dress like pink sea foam, from which her head and lovely throat rose like a flower. She wondered if it was wicked to be glad that she was pretty and to want David to see just how pretty she really was.

She didn't want to go, but go she must, for she knew Green Valley. She knew it and loved it. But she feared it too, because she did not know it well enough.

So half-past eight found her stepping daintily and a little tipsily in her high-heeled slippers over the road, after the last stragglers. She did not want to be seen going in alone and so hung back till the last, a lonely little figure in the cool shadows. Yet she was not so far back that she could not feel the comforting nearness of the folks ahead. She even heard s.n.a.t.c.hes of conversation and smiled understandingly, for she too knew now the little daily trials, the family sorrows and dissensions, the occasional soul tempests, the laughable ways and tenderly pathetic ambitions of these simple, guileless human folks.

She heard enough to know that the couple just ahead was Sam Bobbins and his wife, Dudy; the Sam Bobbins who tried to get rich raising violets and failed; who then began raising mushrooms in his cellar and failed; who last year spent good money trying to raise pedigreed dogs and failed; and who only the week before paid ten dollars for a fancy rooster and was happily telling his neighbors how rich he was going to be, selling fighting stock. His wife stepped on her skirt and ripped it. Jocelyn could hear her worried wail and Sam comforting her with promises of new dresses when the roosters began to sell. She could hear fat Mrs. Glenn puffing and laughing her way up the little crests of the road and could guess that her thin husband was doing his best to help her.

She was so interested in the folks ahead that she forgot to be afraid and never once glanced back into the shadows. Had she done so she might have seen David loitering along, keeping faithful watch over her.

So nicely did he time his steps that when she reached the door of the minister's country house he was right behind her, and all Green Valley saw them come in together.

When Jocelyn, in slipping from her evening wrap, turned and saw him and flushed, he covered her confusion by saying reproachfully but gently:

"Those slippers are ever so pretty, Jocelyn, but you ought not to wear them on these rough country roads and they are hardly warm enough for these cool evenings, are they?"

She gave him a little smile full of saucy wickedness for she heard the pain in his voice and saw the lover's hunger in his eyes and knew that she was loved well and truly. But she had been hurt and she was too much a woman and far too human not to take her turn at gentle cruelty.

"What a couple," breathed Joshua Stillman, standing beside the blazing fireplace with Colonel Stratton. "She's like a dewy sweet rosebud and he's a regular story-book lover in looks and a rare fine boy. We haven't had a wild rose romance like this one for a long while."

"We'll have a finer when that young parson wakes up. He has the look of a great lover, and look at the love history of the Churchills."

It was evident that no man there dreamed of criticizing the dress that looked like pink sea foam. Even David drank in the picture of his little sweetheart and saw how necessary to this wild rose sweetness the high-heeled slippers were. He wondered if ever in his life he would kiss her and, should such glory come to him, if he would live through the joy of it.

It was the women who were inclined to murmur. But as soon as they caught a look or a smile meant just for them their primness melted.

Their duty to their conscience and their upbringing done, they smiled back lovingly at the girl, for who could be critical of a sweet wild rose!

Jocelyn was not the only one whose gown had no collar. Nan Ainslee wore a plain dress that was so beautiful it made the women catch their breath. When Dolly asked the Green Valley dressmaker if she could make her one like it, that body sighed and shook her head and said that she knew that that dress looked awful simple but that it wasn't as simple as it looked and she knew better than to try and copy it.

Some one overheard and asked somebody else why Dolly Beatty should happen to want a dress like that, and instantly somebody smiled and whispered that Charlie Peters, the widower from North Road, was making eyes at her and calling regularly.

So the ball was set rolling and soon everybody knew that Grandma Wentworth had just had a letter from Tommy Dudley, saying that he was doing so well out West on his homestead that he was building himself a new house and was aiming to make Green Valley a visit next lilac time.

And Jimmy Sears, Milly Sears' second boy, was a sergeant in the army and was having a wonderful time somewhere down in Panama. Milly had a letter from him with photographs and was showing them around. Not only did Jimmy give her news of himself but he wrote that John, the oldest boy, was up in Canada and doing well. Jimmy was sending his mother and sister Alice some wonderful laces and embroideries and Frank Burton several kinds of strange fowl by a sailor friend from one of the warships who was going home. So patient, long-suffering Milly Sears was wholly happy for the first time in years.

And no sooner had all this news been digested than somebody discovered a diamond ring on Clara Tuttle's left hand. So Clara was surrounded and an explanation demanded. But before she could conquer her blushes and stammer out her news Max Longman came in from another room and, putting his arms about her, said, "Don't be afraid, girl of mine, I'm here." And so everybody knew then that it was Max, after all, and not Freddy Wilson.

Over near one of the big windows Steve Meckling was looking down at Bonnie Don.

"Bonnie, when will you stop torturing me? When will you let me give you a ring?"

Bonnie was Clara Tuttle's chum and she was watching Clara's face, the light in Clara's eyes, the happy curve of her lips. It was a happiness that made Bonnie's eyes wistful.

"Steve," she said softly, "would you always love me and be gentle with me?"

At that big Steve caught his breath and put his hungry arms behind his back out of temptation's way and said huskily, "Oh, Bonnie, girl, just try me!"

So Bonnie raised her eyes and the big man was at peace.

Billy Evans was the last to arrive. He had to get all the old folks to the party before he and Hank could put in an appearance. But his wife and little Billy were there, little Billy with his ruddy hair curling about his merry little face and his eyes dancing at everything and every one.